Book Review: Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

I read this book as part of the TBR Spin game for 2023 hosted by Jill from The Book Bully and Sarah from Freshly Read Books over on YouTube.

This book was chosen for the prompt “small community/isolated”. Well it wasn’t but it ended up fitting that prompt better than the book I originally chose for that!

Dark Matter is a ghost story set in the 1930s and involves a group of gentlemen who travel to the arctic on an expedition. We follow our protagonist Jack, who through various misfortunes ends up on his own, attempting to complete the expedition for his team.

Further to his isolation in the arctic is the fact that he is alone during the winter, a period in which the sun never rises and the darkness adds to the feeling of insanity and obsession that rises.

It’s a relatively short book, with large writing, so a very quick read. It slowly builds a creeping unease and then hits you with a terrifying climax.

I personally think this would be best read via audiobook, I’ve previously listened to Paver’s Wolf Brother on audio and loved that, and I’m beginning to think that she writes well for the audio format.

Ultimately though, this book didn’t quite work for me. It is either too long, and should be a short story, or it needed bulking out to build up some of the themes, such as Jack’s obsession with the ‘bear post’, and also some of the scenes, such as the climax which felt like it was over before it began. A short climax wouldn’t have bothered me in a short story but with the slow build up of this story it felt a little rushed.

I think I would give this a 3 out of 5 stars because the writing is engaging but the issues I mentioned mean this probably won’t stick in my mind too much.